Contemplative Haven

Over the last number of months, on blogs of everyday layfolk, I have come across descriptions of personal experiences with God: encounters with the Lord involving locutions, intellectual visions, water, dreams, embraces, mists and breath, to name a few. I even wrote about one of my own, with the Sacred Heart.

Are we an oddball bunch of mystics? I don’t think so. I think it’s more likely that we’ve simply reached the point where we have had ample time to analyze the “by their fruits ye shall know them” aspects of these experiences, and we have decided to share some of them. Why? Perhaps in hopes that others will see that they are not out of the ordinary, and to show the mercy and compassion of the Lord.

My only concern, in the context of this series, is that people should not assume that such experiences are necessary.

In the Sixth Mansions, St. Teresa speaks at length of such things; Father Dubay outlines them in Fire Within: ecstasy, rapture, transport, flight of the spirit, impulses, wounding, the betrothal and sometimes levitation.

Now, it is not that these phenomena cannot occur in any of the Mansions, because they can, and do. However, it is in the Sixth Mansions that St. Teresa discusses them, and so in this overview of Interior Castle, that is where they will be presented and discussed as well.

I would just like to ensure that anyone who may be reading this series does not equate the early stages of infused contemplation with having to “feel” any special presence or “experience” anything tangible. In fact, some people spend their whole lives in the practice of contemplative prayer and never experience any of these phenomena. It is entirely up to God – when, where and if.

Based on the first three Mansions, let’s ask ourselves some questions. Are we aware that we have spiritual lives? Do we pray? Are we conscious of sin, and seek forgiveness when we fall short? Have we set aside excessive, unnecessary involvement in worldly pastimes? Do we seek quiet time with the Lord, with the intention of a closer union?

If so, then why should it be difficult to believe that we are entering, or are already in, at least the Fourth Mansions? Although there are different levels of infused contemplation, let’s look at some descriptions which may help us at this point:

“The beginnings of this contemplation are brief and frequently interrupted by distractions. The reality is so unimposing that one who lacks instruction can fail to appreciate what exactly is taking place. Initial infused prayer is so ordinary and unspectacular in the early stages that many fail to recognize it for what it is. Yet with generous people, that is, with those who try to live the whole Gospel wholeheartedly and who engage in an earnest prayer life, it is common.” (Thomas Dubay, Fire Within)

“For contemplation is naught else than a secret, peaceful and loving infusion from God, which, if it be permitted, enkindles the soul with the spirit of love.” (St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul)

“Mystical contemplation is an intuition of God born of pure love.” (Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience)

Can we remain humble, and yet admit to ourselves and possibly to a spiritual director, that we are making spiritual progress? I believe we can. Would we not be hurting Him otherwise? Would we not be denying the existence of His love, His offerings of intimacy and His gifts in our lives?

In the first three Mansions, relative to prayer, St. Teresa only briefly mentions recollection and vocal/mental prayer accompanied by meditation. This is prayer in the “human mode”, as Father Thomas Dubay puts it. Here in the Fourth Mansions, St. Teresa tells us that “we now begin to touch the supernatural”, and Father Dubay explains that by this, she is referring to “the inner experiences of infused contemplation.”

St. Teresa tells us that the “poisonous creatures” seldom enter the Fourth Mansions. The bulk of the work of separating ourselves from these things has been done in the first three Mansions. However, she teaches that temptations can actually “do the soul good” for two reasons: if we do not experience temptations with which we have to do battle we may fall into spiritual pride, and Satan can then mislead us concerning consolations we might be receiving; also, without temptations, “the soul would be deprived of all occasions of merit.”

The importance of knowing the difference between “sweetness in prayer” and “spiritual consolations” is also stressed. St. Teresa describes sweetness in prayer as coming from our meditations, our petitions and our virtuous works. God has a hand in this, she says, but it mainly comes out of our own nature. It is an emotional kind of satisfaction, similar to pleasant emotions which arise from many rewarding worldly activities or events, which “have their source in our own nature and end in God.”

Spiritual consolations, however, “have their source in God, but we experience them in a natural way”. Spiritual consolations “enlarge the heart” in a way that sweetness in prayer does not.

Here we are introduced to St. Teresa’s famous water imagery. She offers us another metaphor: the soul as a large basin. On the one hand, the basin can be filled with water which is brought to it, from the source, through many conduits and by human skill; that is, we can work at prayer, through the conduits of words, thoughts, or meditations on created things and we will receive a “sweetness” in prayer, but the human effort which it requires creates spiritual “noise”, and “fatigues the understanding”.

On the other hand, if the basin is at the source, the water is always flowing, always noiselessly filling the basin with no need of conduits, and this is “spiritual consolation”. She tells us it is “accompanied by the greatest peace and quietness and sweetness within ourselves”, and so, St. Teresa calls it the “Prayer of Quiet”.